Do not read the news paper or watch TV often? Now you have little excuse for not knowing who is running for the US presidential campaign. Democrat, Barack Obama, made an interesting move by running his campaign advertisement in the least unexpected place - online video games.

Moving from traditional advertising to the digital realm, Obama’s camp purchased ad spaces in 18 popular games such as Need for speed: Carbon, Guitar Hero 3, Madden 09. However, these ads are directed at certain states and viewers of the ads can be traced through their IP addresses registered. Obama even have a mii, a digital avatar created for the Wii games, which is hugely popular to download.

Aimed at targeting voters who are male and between the ages of 18 to 34 years old, spend a minimum of six hours per week playing games, thus digital advertisements adds to Obama’s edge over his rival among the younger voters.

Advertisements coming in forms of banners and billboards in the games, gamers will see Obama’s face and  a reference to voteforchange.com – an easy to navigate site where voters can register online to vote, find polling locations, register to vote absentee, and obtain additional information on voting.

Understanding the shift in where people are spending their time and that traditional campaigning methods are no longer well received by the younger generation, Obama’s camp also placed ads in social networking sites such as facebook to reach the net savvy crowd earlier in the month. It is very interesting to see that the use of interactive media which is close to the heart of today’s society, has moved from commercial use to presidential elections. With such a bold move, the reach of Obama’s voters will be expanded.

Well done Obama’s camp! I am sure your creative way of campaigning will definitely pay off.